


Consequences

by Songofpsalms297



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst with a smidge of fluff, Drinking, F/M, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Mystery, Sorrow, friend/comfort, so very sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-11
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-08-30 11:20:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8531053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Songofpsalms297/pseuds/Songofpsalms297
Summary: All life's choices have consequences, many of which are unforeseen. Alternate sad times for the Inquisition family.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Sad little ficlet, inspired by my daughter's love of these two.  
> Qunlat words taken from the Dragon Age Wiki on Qunlat found at the link below.
> 
> Basra: rude word for non-Qunari  
> Issala: Dust  
> Itwasit: Falls  
> "Itwasit issala" rough translation to "it falls to dust" meaning all the good will be gone.
> 
> http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Qunlat

Seheron. There was so much damned blood. Beautiful face, gasping vomiting, even more blood. The whole situation reminded Bull of that shithole, Seheron. Sweat streaming, body coming apart in cramps, gasps, and agony. “This hurts worse than my father’s blood magic conversion attempt.” Dorian weakly jests. “Just drink the damn antidote, so I can get you to a healer, Kadan.” Grasping, sipping, weak hold, fighting to keep it down, coolness, and less pain where a fiery blade tore seconds before. Slowly, better. Still gasping, “Vishante Kaffas, we’ve had better dates.” Weak smile above a dragon’s tooth necklace. “Not laughing, Kadan. I’m going to pick you up as gently as I can, and run you over to Dalish’s place. She’s used to drawing sar-qamek from wounds so it can’t fester and kill you later. That’s not the end of our story, Dorian. I won’t allow it. Once I know you are safe, I will track down the one who attacked you.” “I didn’t even see them, Bull. How will you track them down?” “You will tell me every detail you remember. And I will go from there.”  
Bull shook his head, remembering, carrying Dorian to Dalish’s place. The frantic application of healing poultices, and cuts to draw the poison out of the wound. Fighting to keep the poison from causing the flesh around the wound from putrefying. Dorian had faded in and out of consciousness all night. It had taken Dalish the entire night to seek out, and remove all the sar-qamek from the knife wound in Dorian’s gut. She took advantage of the moments he had passed out from the pain to really dig in and eradicate poisonous areas. Bull held Dorian’s hand through all. Tears misting his eye as he watched his beloved kadan fight for his life. It was all bullshit. Dorian had already had enough pain for one lifetime.  
Tracking once again. Day 8 and Dorian was still unconscious, still battling for his life. Bull had stayed by Dorian’s side for days, but the clues were getting old, and Bull needed to find the asshole responsible for this shit. Needed to take them apart, limb by limb.  
Days pass, clues pile up, leading Bull ever onward toward the moment he will have his quarry pinned to the wall. He hadn’t been out of the Ben-Hassrath long enough for all his contacts to dry up, and he still was great at reading people. He followed leads, where the poison had come from, but it was purchased in the dark, false name. One dead end lead to more, and just as he started to despair, he caught the scent of his prey. Clues came together like blocks tumbling from a child’s tower. Divine Victoria, and Varric, had both contributed to the growing pile of clues via their own very thorough information retrieval networks, yielding leads that would bring Iron Bull to the perpetrator. All the while Bull follows the clues; something tickles at the back of his mind. The application of liquid sar-qamek to the knife, the street Dorian was attacked on while shopping for their anniversary celebration, even the angle the knife slid into Dorian’s body, where it pierced Dorian’s beautiful brown skin. Angled to do the most damage, to bring the slowest, most agonizing form of death. Bull had known, just by looking at the angle of Dorian’s wound that it was a Ben-Hassrath trained assassin, but why? Bull had been declared Tal-Vashoth over a year ago by the Arishok. Why attack Dorian, at all? No. Bull knew this was deeply personal for someone. The question was, whom?  
Dorian rallied by day 13 much to Bull’s relief. “Kadan, don’t you ever worry me like that again.” Insufferable even when he had been camping out on death’s door for the past two weeks, Dorian smiled. “But I so long to add more spice to our relationship, Amatus. Aren’t you always looking for some means of pushing the boundaries? Sadly, I must reschedule our anniversary plans. Ugh, maybe Josephine, or Varric will be able to exploit their connections so we won’t have to wait another year to attend the Vivazi Plaza Celebration in Minrathous.” Bull chuckled, as he covered Dorian’s pale hand in his own large ones. “That’s where you’d planned for us to go? We were gonna flirt with the dancers, weren’t we?” Dorian smiled, sighed, and drifted off to sleep. Bull slept fitfully in a chair by Dorian’s sickbed, half listening for his kadan’s breathing through the night.  
Walking through the shop area where Dorian had been attacked once again, to see if he’d missed anything at all, Bull caught a familiar face in the tail of his remaining eye. Spinning quickly, he pursued the runner through the streets of Jader, down ancient streets so narrow his horns scraped along the walls. “GATT! Gatt! Stop! I need to talk to you!” Gatt’s eyes stare into Bull, “Basra! Itwasit issala!” and he runs faster. Bull’s heart plunging into his stomach, pursues his former friend until he traps Gatt in a dead-end alley. “Why did you attack Dorian? I am Tal-Vashoth. Why not attack me? Dorian is an innocent in this!” Gatt glares at Bull, “Because he cares for you. Because you turned from me, from us, you threw us all away for him, for your Inquisition. All those years, Hissrad, and you threw it all away for them! For him! I stood up for you, Hissrad, I told them, I told the Ben-Hassrath that you would never become Tal-Vashoth! But you threw us all away, when you became Tal-Vashoth! I thought we were brothers, Hissrad. You saved me, and then you abandoned me, just like all the others. So, you suffer now too. Dorian dies too.” Bull grabs Gatt by the head and neck, and twists, short, sharp, then drops Gatt’s lifeless corpse to the ground, as he sprints home, dread pooling in his stomach. Terrified of what he will find at home.

*********************************  
"Hey, Tiny." Bull lifted his head from off his arms to blearily peer at the dwarf standing next to his shitty seat, in this shitty run-down tavern, in this shitty little backwater town, in this shitty little life. "C'mon, Tiny. Let's get you out of here. Where are, you staying? It's time to sleep this off." Maybe it was due to the sheer exhaustion from the storm of emotions that had ravaged him for the last 20 days, maybe it was due to Dorian's influence, hell, maybe he was finally slipping into the role of Tal-Vashoth, two years after the Arishok's declaration. He didn't know, but a tear escaped from under his eye-patch to roll solemnly down his battle-scarred cheek. Varric's voice hitched, "I'm so sorry, Cass and I, we're-- fuck."  
Reaching for his tankard, Bull drained what was left. He allowed Varric to pull him to his feet, and they walked companionably down the street to a different tavern, this one doubled as an inn, and Varric had secured a room. "Where's Cass?" Bull asked having sobered a little with the physical activity of walking, plus being Qunari was almost as good for alcohol resistance as being a dwarf. "Ah, you know Cassandra, Bull. Her idea of comforting is to remind you just how badly life sucks, and that things could always be worse. Maker, I love her, but she's terrible for comforting someone." Bull chuckled, "Yeah, I remember her trying to encourage Lavellan after Chuckles left. It was something like, 'You loved an idiot. He was too stupid to see how wonderful you really are. An arrogant, narcissistic apostate, almost as bad as Anders. Although Anders wasn't completely responsible for his foolishness. He at least could blame the demon inside himself. Solas is just an arrogant fool.' I had to help Lavellan realize Cassandra thought she was being comforting." Varric laughed at the memory. "She was so pissed! She thought what she said was perfectly 'legitimate' because she had said it while her arms were wrapped around Lavellan!" Both men chuckling, Bull asked, "Cass at home?" Varric, sobering, "Yeah. She's keeping the twins from destroying the viscount's palace, brick, by brick. And all the while she complains, her eyes sparkle." Bull smiles, "I always knew she'd make a damn good mother."  
________________________________________


End file.
